


Looking Back, Seeing Far

by FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, But mostly just humor, Do we hate each other or are we actually just in denial?, Enemies to Lovers, Humor, Hurt Stephen Strange, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Just basically one giant middle-finger to that movie okay, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Stephen Strange is Actually the Greatest, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, and Stephen saw a different better future that we never made it to, catch me heavily implying what we saw in Endgame was one of the losses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24139369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls/pseuds/FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls
Summary: Tony Stark has rebuilt a world after Thanos snapped. Through blood and tears and suffering, he's rebuilt it--and he has Stephen Strange to blame for what he went through. He does so, hating the wizard with all his considerable capacity for passion, and Stephen does the same. It leaves them squabbling like petty children or perhaps mortal enemies when they're supposed to be saving the world, and it's getting in the way of productivity.So Tony's family comes up with a plan.“You’re gonna make a list,” Rhodey said. “Seven things you like about Stephen Strange.”Tony dropped the notepad like a hot potato. “What?”Rhodey didn’t blink. “Each week.”"No. I refuse."
Relationships: All the Stark Kids and Tony, Peter Parker & Stephen Strange, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Avengers Team, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Comments: 37
Kudos: 468





	Looking Back, Seeing Far

**Author's Note:**

> As another day passes in the deep, sweltering expanse of the desert home of the quarantined writer, an overly lengthy one-shot begins to take shape...
> 
> *cough cough* ANYWAY
> 
> Writing this in between the End of Infinity chapters because I needed something a little lighter during THOSE shenanigans. So now we get more shenanigans! Post-Alternate-Endgame, One-True-Future, Enemies-Or-Are-We shenanigans. I had fun with this! Enjoy.

Tony Stark was a genius. A certified genius, if anyone happened to forget, though he made sure they didn’t.

When Tony knew something, he _knew_ it; knew it inside-out and upside-down, knew every facet, every edge, every problem it might have. He knew the equations governing quantum entanglement and could map any thermodynamic situation with little error. He understood a dozen universal and multidimensional theories, as well as the nature of timespace and how to manipulate it. The current internal combustion regulations of automobiles frequently made appearances in his dreams. Tony knew his name and his success and the exact number of days it had been since his last near-death experience. 

It was with this same complete, doubtless confidence that Tony knew he hated Stephen Strange. 

And it wasn’t one sided, as far as Tony could tell. His loathing was completely requited, unless the wizard happened to be perfect at faking sneers, snipes, arrogance, and a refusal to follow logic or orders. Then again, Strange was perfectly versed in acting out a seamless scheme to manipulate each of them into broken, awful roles in order to tailor the saving of the goddamn universe from beyond the grave like an overly dedicated hedge-trimmer. He was absolutely capable of acting off a script to leave Tony with half a universe to save—absolutely capable of _killing_ the other half, however temporarily. 

The wizard had sauntered into Tony’s life and then subsequently sauntered back out of it. And taken everyone else with him. Thanos was a bitch of an enemy, just as determined every time they went against him, and he’d taken Tony’s patience, left arm and shoulder, and marriage in the last battle before he’d finally fucking _died._ Tony wanted that axe framed on his wall, purple blood withstanding. 

Yes, he was that morbid nowadays. Blame Stephen-goddamn-Strange. 

But now Thanos was dead, and everyone was back, and Tony had been adopted by no less than three genius children, and the Avengers were back together, and they’d decided it was a fine idea to bring one wizard on as a “competent, hardworking team” plus-one. Which left Tony landing sharply on the seared cement of a New York street, head still boiling through his suit, and pulling back his helmet. 

A wave of dry heat washed across his face, and he grimaced. Charred alien guts floated around him like gruesome snow. His knees were blistered, his suit sparking, and he knew his eyebrows had been charred right off his face by the flare. 

“What the hell was that?” he demanded. He stalked across the pavement to the wizard standing in the center of the street. Strange wore not a hair out of place, despite the fight and the fire. Typical.

“A successful plan,” Strange said flatly, “though I know you lack experience with such.”

 _“That,”_ Tony hissed, “was _not the plan._ The plan was our collective hand-to-hand prowess as a diversion against the alien leadership.”

Strange looked unruffled. “This was just as effective, I seem to observe.”

 _“Just as—_ you vaporized half the street! You almost killed me!” _Again._ “You ruined a perfectly adequate battle plan.”

Strange just tucked his hands into that stupid Cloak and oozed self-satisfaction. Tony wanted to punch him in the simperingly indifferent face.

So he did. Life was too short to resist temptation. 

That was how the rest of the team found them, squabbling and hissing in the ruins of a magically singed street. After that fist good smack, Tony landed no other hits, but there was red on his knuckles and he felt considerably gratified. Strange looked pissed, and Tony _was_ pissed, and Steve, when he hauled Tony back and yelped from the burning heat still permeating the Mark 50, was no different. 

“What’s going on here?” Steve demanded.

The rest of the assault team was trickling onto the scene, looking various shades of shaken. Peter—who’d drawn the long straw against the other kids to join the mission today—matched the blood on Tony’s hand to the blood on Strange’s face and rolled his eyes. 

“Just a little post-battle discussion,” Tony bit out. He glared at the wizard. 

“Damn it,” Rhodey sighed, pushing through the line of weary Avengers so his disapproval could be witnessed without obstruction. “Are you serious? Tony, Strange? You were supposed to _have this.”_

“I _did_ have it,” Strange grumbled. He spread his hands, as if for applause. “Poof, no more aliens. It’s only your Cockolorum that seems to have an issue.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Did you just insult me in Jacobite Minstrelsy?”

“I can’t believe you know that,” Steve grumbled. “I can’t believe you—it was a diversion, not a—” Steve cut himself off, running his hands through his short blond hair. “You were supposed to work _with_ Tony.” 

“I didn’t want to. This was easier.” 

Tony wasn’t sure if he should be insulted or sadistically pleased that Strange found flame-broiling an entire street preferable to working with him. Either way, he sneered. 

“Okay, okay, fine, okay. At least we won.” Steve raised his eyes to the heavens. “This is a mess. Stephen, you’re on clean-up duty. The rest of you, get out of here.”

Tony was happy to oblige. 

  
  


Harley had booby-trapped the front door again. Which meant that when Tony slouched into the cramped kitchen, he was not only pissed, hot, and injured, but soaking wet as well. All-in-all, he was lacking the emotional tranquility that usually classified a ‘good mood’. 

“So, how was the fight?” Harley asked, the picture of innocence. 

Tony grumbled. “The only reason I’m not cussing you out right now is because Morgan’s present.”

Morgan, who he’d met not long after the Desolation when the toddler’s parents had been killed in a helicopter accident, grinned up at him toothily. She was eating ice cream out of the tub, with the scoop instead of a spoon. 

“Pepper told you not to do that,” Tony reminded her.

Morgan took a large bite out of the scoop. “She changed her mind.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “Did she?” he said suspiciously. 

Harley grinned lazily. “What do you value more: a couple bites of ice cream or Pepper not knowing you doubted her parenting choices?”

Tony flinched. “Okay, new rule,” he announced. “None of you are allowed to terrorize me after missions.”

“Laaame,” Peter contributed helpfully. “Two thirds majority, overruled.”

Tony spun toward him and stuck out a finger. “Go get changed,” he ordered. “You smell like alien shi—feces.”

“Ugh, you’re right.” Peter sniffed at his own shoulder and grimaced

Tony pivoted, finger still extended so it now jabbed in Harley’s direction. “See?” he said. “Peter respects me. You two, take notes.”

“I respect you,” Morgan said haughtily. “I just respect _me_ equally, if not more so.”

Harley was a bad influence on the six-year-old. Harley was a bad influence on everyone. 

The boy in question furrowed his brow at Tony’s finger. “There’s blood on your hand.”

“Yeah, I punched Strange.”

Peter, who was moving toward the far door, shared a pointed look with Harley. Peter ducked into the hallway a moment later. Snorting and catching his chin in his hand, Harley watched Tony. “And why, pray tell, did you decide to assault the sorcerer this time?”

“He’s an asshole.” Tony didn’t think he should have to provide any other reason. That was a perfectly fine explanation. 

“Their squabbling almost lost us the mission!” Peter called from down the hall. His spider-hearing was uncanny when it came to making smart remarks. 

“Again?” Morgan said, glancing up from her ice cream.

“It did not nearly lose us the mission.” 

“Everything would have gone completely smoothly, no fireballs necessary, if you’d just _worked together_ like teammates are supposed to do!” Peter yelled.

“Take a shower!” Tony yelled back.

“Did Rhodey yell at you yet?” Harley wondered. 

“I’m counting down the seconds,” Tony sighed. “Oh, and Pepper said she’s dropping off a contracting agreement for the protoreactive engine as an excuse to say ‘hi’ later tonight. So please get the traps _off_ the doors before then.”

“Fine,” Harley groaned dramatically. 

“Uh-huh.” Tony shoved away from the table. “Brat.”

“Bitch.”

Grinning as he turned away, Tony threw the middle finger as he left the kitchen, momentarily forgetting his resolve to avoid vulgarity around Morgan. It was too late anyway. 

Harley and Morgan’s laughter followed him up the hall and into his wing of the Compound, where Tony finally paused to exhale and pull off his boots and his arc reactor. His face was still slick with soot, but his eyebrows couldn’t be _that_ bad off if Morgan hadn’t commented on them. Tony braced his hands on the door frame and shimmied out of his socks. He could hear Peter singing and the sound of running water from the other side of the wall.

It was nice, having everyone in one place. He’d been worried things with Steve and the others would be tense after Thanos and thus the reason for their forgiveness and alliance was terminated. But it wasn’t so; the Avengers had found a new niche in Tony’s life, a new place of familiarity, and it was decidedly comforting. 

Happy and Rhodey and Pepper and May and the kids and even that ER doctor Christine had slotted into life after Thanos and helped Tony carve out a spot for himself as well. Things with Pepper had been… uncomfortable, truly, after their actions had set them on different paths post-Desolation, but the tension didn’t last forever. Their friendship went deeper than labels, and severing one bond for both of their benefits didn’t sever the others. 

So the Compound was home to too many super-individuals, of mind or matter or magic (not Strange, obviously), and Tony was absolutely content with it.

Rhodey banged his way through the door to Tony’s rooms, shattering the engineer out of his thoughts. Tony flopped back onto the bed without heed of the smudge of soot he cast across the sheets—they needed washed anyway. Besides, facing Rhodey’s debriefing lecture was better attempted in a horizontal position. 

“So you did it again,” Rhodey announced.

“I have only punched the wizard on one other occasion,” Tony pointed out. It had been the day the man had come back from the dead, and Tony regretted nothing. 

“Yeah, but you’ve fucked missions up because you can’t put aside yelling at him… how many times? Oh yeah, that’s right, it happens _anytime you’re in combat together.”_

Tony blinked up at the beige ceiling. “He’s awful. I hate him. He doesn’t even fit in this universe.”

“He did save your life. And the aforementioned universe. On multiple occasions.”

That didn’t bother Tony. It was _how_ Strange did it that was the problem. Every time he glanced at the man’s infuriatingly, inhumanly emotionless face, all he could remember was the sand of Titan and Peter Parker’s remains blowing away in the wind. All he could remember was lonely days on a spaceship and a desperate race with Thor and Carol to save the Stones before they could be destroyed. All he could remember was pain and death and _betrayal._

And Strange had never apologized for it. Never even spoken of it. He went around with almost vengeful confidence, an unaffected arrogance and impersonal recklessness, and Tony hated him for it.

Rhodey sighed, lying next to him on the bed. Both of their legs stretched down onto the floor and crossed identically. 

“Look,” the Colonel said. “I usually have no issue with people who get under your skin and how you deal with them. But Strange is your teammate, and he’s one _hell_ of a fighter. We need him. And it’s all undermined because you two can’t work together.”

Tony grumbled. He knew it was an issue. He didn’t go _into_ situations intending to get wrathfully exploited by the wizard, but the irritation they so consistently incited in each other was more common than not. Afterwards, he knew he was being stupid. But it didn’t matter in the moment. 

Hating Strange was like that. 

“Steve’s going to murder me one of these days,” Tony sighed. “Or Peter’s going to stab me in my sleep.” 

“Or something vital during an important mission is actually going to fail,” Rhodey said. “And somebody's going to get hurt. Which is why we’re going to do something about this.”

Tony whipped his head toward the man. “I suddenly feel very unsafe.”

Rhodey grinned at him. “Pepper, your kids, and I have an idea.”

Tony was on his feet a second later, barely resisting the urge to run for the door. “No, no, no. I hate it when you say those words.”

“I’m proactively saving the world,” Rhodey argued. “ _And_ a couple dozen headaches. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

He reached into his pocket, and then a spiral-bound notepad was being pressed into Tony’s hands. The pages rustled, crinkled on the edges, and Tony compulsively smoothed them down. 

“You’re gonna make a list,” Rhodey said. “Seven things you like about Stephen Strange.”

Tony dropped the pad like a hot potato. _“What?”_

Rhodey didn’t blink. “Each week.”

“No. I refuse.”

Rhodey just looked at him. “If I have reason to suspect you’re cheating or using veiled insults, I _will_ read them each week. Out loud. At debriefing meetings, in front of everyone. If you play nice, I’ll let you suffer with dignity.”

“You are a demon,” Tony hissed. His fury was sparking again.

“We’re teaming up with Wong. Strange will be doing it too.”

_“Absolutely not.”_

Rhodey grinned. “Oh, absolutely yes.”

Tony gritted his teeth, taking a long, deep breath. “For how long?”

“Until you start working together without issue. Until you both start treating each other like humans.” Rhodey crossed his arms. 

“And if I refuse?” 

Rhodey shrugged, nonplussed. “Then I make your life a living hell. But you aren’t going to refuse. It’s team effectiveness at stake, after all, and you won’t undermine the health of the initiative.”

Tony held in a snarl—not very well. There was a seed of bitter determination behind Rhodey’s amusement, which told Tony this was no prank, and no trifle. The team had decided to solve a problem, important enough for effort. 

Very slowly, Tony scooped the pad off the ground.

⭒✸⭒

Stephen Strange was a genius. Certified, if anyone happened to forget, though he made sure they didn’t.

When Stephen Strange knew something, he knew it against the cross-reference of a thousand universes. He knew it along the memories of tens of millions of lifetimes, drawn like four-dimensional spiderwebs across his consciousness. He knew it with the color of his soul and the constant of his energies, knew it so deeply there could be no dispute, no misunderstanding, no room for undiscovered aspects.

So it was really no wonder that Stephen knew almost nothing at all.

He sat in the Sanctum for a long, baffled minute after the doors had snapped shut, staring at the pocket-sized pad of ecru paper in his fingers. His hands shook harder now, since Thanos, and the pad vibrated along with them. Like a mischievous cat. Like a ticking bomb. 

Stephen thought he had an advantage when it came to this game. It seemed like a pretty safe thing to think, and he wasn’t sure what else he could do. Seven things he liked about Tony Stark per week—well. Stark had interacted with him a bare minimum of ten hours, most of them full of combat and irritation. Conversely, Stephen had spent lifetimes in a single moment with the horribly infuriating engineer. He knew Stark, and therefore had more data to base his conclusions off of, than the other genius did. 

Stephen traditionally designated himself about one part person, three parts behavior-tailoring mirror android. That last was Christine’s description. Stephen rather liked it. But it meant that the opinion he’d formed of Stark was about as genuine as Dormammu’s promise of mercy, rewritten and adjusted to reflect the energy and interaction directed at him.

Stark hated Stephen. So Stephen hated him back. It was basic logic. 

And being angry at the man, being angry at _someone,_ was gratifying. Stephen had been through hell and back, had watched as he’d inflicted hell on others and mourned every moment of it with a shattered soul pieced back together by the Cloak and magic and green tea. Maybe he deserved hatred, but he also deserved some goddamn recognition. Being angry was easy. Being angry was freeing. 

So Stephen let himself hate, because he wasn’t sure what else to do.

The pad in his hand winked up at him tauntingly. It reminded him that he wasn’t allowed to do so anymore. 

Wong and Rhodes and Potts and the Stark Gremlins were tag-teaming him to prod the part of him that was a person to the surface. The part of him that felt and assumed and guessed. It made Stephen profoundly uncomfortable.

“What do you think?” he asked the Cloak, settled heavily on his shoulders. 

The Cloak rippled, quilted fabric rubbing against the back of his neck. There was no scar there in this universe, which was good—it would have itched. 

“This can only go poorly,” Stephen proclaimed. 

The Cloak considered that for a moment, then bobbed. Setting the pad down against the arm of his chair, atop the half-solved Rubik’s Cube he’d been fiddling with before interruption, Stephen rubbed his face with shaking hands. He was still slightly drained from the excessive flames he’d channeled this morning. The melodrama hadn’t been strictly required, but a little extra exertion was always worth it to piss Stark off. The blackened soot across the engineer’s face, pink with rage, was mythically satisfying.

There, that was something already!

  * _He’s fun to annoy, especially via fire._



Stephen was getting much better at controlling his handwriting, though it still looked like that of a toddler with a crayon. Oh well. He fully intended to play nice (Rhodes’s threat was a nightmare he didn’t wish to _ever_ come to light); no one else would ever see these.

Stephen sat and stared at the pad for another long minute. Nothing else came to mind. 

“Whatever,” he told the Cloak. “I have a whole week, don’t I? Let’s go do something actually _productive.”_

The Cloak, excited to get back to their duties, helped him stand with a little too much exuberance. Stephen stumbled, laughing, and the Sanctum reflected the sound. 

He didn’t know a lot of things, not for certain. But he did know that this was his home. This Cloak, this building, this city, this universe. Stephen had fought so hard to get here, so long and so far, and he didn’t regret it, not for a moment. He wouldn’t apologize for it. He _wouldn’t,_ even with the atrocities he’d allowed and the suffering he’d turned away from and the lives he’d taken. 

Stephen would not apologize for doing what had to be done. 

To hell with Stark, if he couldn’t see the _good_ in what lay in front of him. The souls had found their way to their rightful homes, as the One Future had shown. There’d been so many close calls, so many that could have destroyed their one chance, had Stephen lost even an iota of control. But they’d managed to settle into a single timeline, by some impossible stroke of luck. Romanoff and Stark were alive. Loki had found his way back to the material plane. Morgan’s soul had found a form and clung tight to Stark and Potts, and broken friendships had been repaired. 

It was easier to focus on that than to remember the sound of the screams. 

Stephen shook his head, striding upwards toward the library. He left the pad behind, making sure to note its location. He’d come back to it later. When he was less irked. 

Maybe. 

  
  


Three days and one disastrous mission later, Stephen was staring daggers at the single line of spidery writing on his notepad. He’d left the team stranded in Egypt where the self-cursed relic had been recovered—or, rather, he’d provoked Stark into demanding Stephen leave them in the sand and wind and thus in peace. Stephen was _happy_ to oblige.

But it did mean the team was stuck in the desert until someone sent for retrieval, with neither supplies nor stellar attitudes. Stephen could already hear the hypocritical complaining conveniently ignoring the fact that Stephen had been _ordered_ to leave them on their asses. He kind of wished he was still lurking around to see it. 

It didn't matter anyway. The team would get back without incident. Someone would call a quinjet, or those who could fly would carry those who couldn’t.

Which would _also_ be hilarious to watch. And exactly why this little notepad exercise was necessary. 

“I think this is a horrible plan,” Stephen grumbled, tapping his pencil against his knuckle. 

It was a wonder the paper hadn’t burst into flame yet. Stephen was practicing ignition through eye contact, difficult without the usually associated hand movements, as it would be convenient to light people on fire with the power of his will. Wong told him such activities were forbidden unless he also learned how to extinguish those same flames just as quickly. Control was the heart of the Mystic Arts. And yadda yadda. 

The Cloak, progressively more frustrated with his inaction, whacked him lightly on the wrist. Stephen poked it in return. Childish or not, fighting with the relic made him feel a little less irate, a little less unsteady, and a little less lonely. 

“Don’t whine at me,” Stephen told it. “ _You_ have not been faced with a repetitive, impossible task. I am Sisyphus on the fields of punishment.”

The Cloak slapped him, unimpressed by his lamenting. It was smooth and clean; Stephen had washed and softened it after the Egypt diabolical as an excuse to put off staring in helpless frustration at the first unfilled page of his notepad. 

> _Seven things I like about Tony Stark._

Idly, Stephen traced the underline beneath the words. Seven things, each week. One per day for the foreseeable future. Even the _Images of Ikonn_ hadn’t stumped him like this—at least not for long. How could he possibly be expected to consistently produce truthful responses to a question he couldn’t answer? 

Because he didn’t like Tony Stark. All parts and aspects of him _definitely_ withstanding.

Stephen let his pen slide between his fingers with another sigh. Part of him wanted to chuck the pad at Rhodes’s face and tell him to do his worst, and then he remembered the Colonel and everyone else was currently stuck without transport in Egypt. Precisely _because_ Stephen reliably failed at this task. 

> _Seven things I like about Tony Stark._

Maybe there was no answer to that. But perhaps if Stephen modified the parameters slightly…

Capturing his tongue between his teeth, Stephen scratched out the label at the top of the notepad. Shaking fingers inscribed beneath it:

> _Seven positive things about Tony Stark._

Then Stephen got to work. 

⭒✸⭒

“This was your idea, wasn’t it?” Tony demanded when Peter wandered into one of the Compound’s lounges. The boy was munching happily on a cookie and quirked a grin when he saw Tony peering at his pad of paper. 

“How’s progress?” he asked with only a hint of cheek.

“‘Progress’ is nonexistent,” Tony grumbled. He ripped the corner off one sheet of the pad, crumpled it, and chucked it across the room. “This is impossible.”

Peter sat down on the arm of the sofa and offered Tony a pastry. Offhandedly, Tony took it. Loki had made these the other day; Tony was pretty sure they kept so well by some sort of magic. 

Through a mouthful of crumbs, he complained, “Making me think about Strange is only making me more _annoyed_ at him. Can’t we just write him off as a bastard and get on with it?”

Peter hummed. “If we did _that_ we’d have to write you off, too.”

“I resent being compared to him.”

“What don’t you resent?” Peter threw up a hand.

“If I _knew_ I’d already be _finished_ with this godforsaken exercise, wouldn’t I?” Tony grumbled. He ripped off another shred of paper, this time flicking it at Peter. 

“It wasn’t rhetorical,” Peter told him. “Think. Strange isn’t _that_ bad.”

“Yes he is.”

Peter sighed. “You’re being dramatic. Stop wallowing in denial and admit there are things about him that are cool.”

“Like what?”

Peter stuck a finger at him. “Don’t try to cheat off me,” the boy said. “You hafta think of them on your own.”

Tony grumbled. He knew he was being petulant, but he didn’t particularly care. This was stupid and frustrating and not at all worth his time. He was sunburnt from Egypt—which was not at _all_ endearing Strange to his heart. 

“But I don’t _know_ anything,” he told Peter. “I know nothing about him.”

“That’s not my problem.” Peter took a large bite of his cookie and beamed. “I’m going to the library. Can I take Morgan?”

“Sure,” Tony said, shooing the boy off the side of his chair. “Text me when you get there.”

“Cool.” Peter vaulted off the sofa, landing in a somersault, and swiped his phone off the table as he went. Stunts were commonplace in this household; Tony didn’t even blink. Peter was out the door with a wave and a jaunty farewell a second later. 

Then Tony was alone with a blank sheet of paper and a deadline wandering ever-closer. Rhodey wouldn’t read the list, but he’d said he’d check for completion… like Tony was in high school again. Fuck that. Fuck all of this, this entire useless plan. 

Outside of Avengers business, Strange and he had never truly interacted. The longest Tony had spent in the wizard's presence was that fateful day on their journey to Titan before everything had gone to shit. As that was before Strange's manipulations had begun skewing Tony’s perception of him, Tony tried to think back to aspects he might have gleaned during that time. All he remembered was space-flavored anxiety, snappishness, rubbed nerves, and physical pain. 

Tony narrowed his eyes at the empty pad. It seemed he would need to employ other resources. Such was the scientific method, after all; he had his question, and now came the research.

“FRIDAY,” he called, fishing a holoscreen out of his pocket and setting it upright on the arm of the chair. “Find me the Wikipedia article on ‘Doctor Strange’, would you?”

⭒✸⭒

 _Seven things_ ~~_I like_ ~~ _that don’t annoy me about the warlock:_

> _1\. He’s capable, I guess. Versatile magic has kept us out of the gutter a couple of times._

> _2\. He can/knows how to reattach severed nerves._

> _3\. He can/knows how to perform stereotaxis._

> _All of these neurosurgery specifics are not cheating, by the way._

> _4\. Apparently he can/knows how to perform a suboccipital craniotomy. I did not have to look that up._

> _5\. His field medicine isn’t that bad either._

> _6\. He can play the piano. Google doesn’t know how well._

> _~~7\. He has a photographic memory~~ Nevermind, that’s definitely annoying. _
> 
> _7\. He doesn’t leave a mess after a mission, and if he does, he usually cleans it up._

> _There, are you HAPPY NOW?_

⭒✸⭒

_Seven positive things about Tony Stark:_

  * _He’s resourceful._
  * _He’s experienced._
  * _He’s a supportive father, and a supportive leader to a world that needs him._
  * _He sticks to a color scheme._
  * _He doesn’t give up._
  * _He’s confident and self-assured when he must be._
  * _He wants to make the world a better place._



⭒✸⭒

Colonel Rhodes stopped Stephen in the doorway to the meeting room halfway through the second week. Stephen pretended not to know why. 

“What can I do for you?” he asked provocatively.

“Tony’s keeping up. I assume you are, too?”

“I made a list for last week, yes.”

Rhodes nodded. “Good, then your home free.”

He stepped aside, and Stephen was irked to find that he relaxed a little at the man’s dismissal; being signaled out in front of the group of heroes was the single worst thing Stephen could imagine happening to him—and he’d died millions of times at the hands of multiple otherworldly beings. So yes, Stephen had made that list, and yes he would continue to do so. 

Nowhere in the rules did it say he had to be happy about it, however. Stephen swept into the room with as much elegant, powerful energy as he could muster. Just in case any of them had forgotten that he was a genius and an intensely skilled sorcerer.

Stark glowered at him as he slipped to a seat at the back of the room. Conventional. Stephen glowered back. Predictable.

“Alright, all.” Steve wandered over to his spot just left of the head of the table. Hulk sat at the aforementioned head, as he was the version of the duo-souls currently occupying this plane of existence, and he didn’t fit anywhere else. “The damage reports have been collected, and we managed not to overpass our baseline for last week.”

There was an enthusiastic round of applause. Meeting the baseline meant funding and continued freedom in terms of legality. Thanos had ripped the Accords to pieces faster than a Impieku imp at a roll of toilet paper, and what had come to replace them was far more comprehensive. The Outworld Contract was a working agreement, was loose rules and clear exceptions, understanding of individual needs and of the support they could offer in turn. Nothing could be perfectly balanced, of course, but the Contract came closer than Stephen could ever have hoped.

He had his own subclause, to his satisfaction. 

“We have no intergalactic missions scheduled for the coming period, as no one has sent any messages,” Steve continued, “but you never know when something urgent will come up. Worldwide, there’s undocumented experimentation said to be happening somewhere in the Atlantic.”

“Fishy,” Stark contributed. There was a shared laugh around the table. 

Stephen’s first instinct was to roll his eyes, but he caught himself halfway through the movement. He was supposed to be making an effort. 

_Look for positives._

Romanoff said, “I’m thinking a small scouting team to check that out before we decide assault parameters. We’ll have a couple available on standby.”

“Agreed.” Steve nodded. “Other worldwide needs include some resurfaced Ultron tech near Bulgaria, though T’Challa has agreed to manage the fallout from that…” Steve paused for a moment, tapping at the holoscreen in front of him. “Anything interdimensional?”

“Nothing to report,” Stephen called promptly, not bothering to stand.

“Good. So a quiet week, I should hope.” Steve leaned forward onto his elbows. 

Sam raised his hand. “I was going to mention what happened in Egypt, but apparently ‘that’ has been taken care of?”

Stephen tensed. Stark’s glower grew slightly deeper.

“Measures have been taken,” Rhodes agreed, giving Stark a pointed look. The glower went thunderous. 

“Great. I hate being stranded. I hate sand.” 

Stephen refrained from turning that into a _Star Wars_ reference. Peter didn’t. 

“It's all coarse, and rough, and irritating. And it gets everywhere,” the boy provided. 

“Yes, exactly,” Sam agreed, then frowned at the scatter of individuals snickering into their hands. 

“Any news from New Asgard?” Stark wondered, hauling the subject aggressively away. 

“All’s well,” Hulk grunted. He banged huge fists on the table for emphasis. 

Gesturing widely, Steve said, “I guess we’ll move on to engineering, then.” 

“Great.” Tony stood. “I used that baseline funding from the last period on Peter and Nat—Clint, you’re next in line, but you’re not on active duty so I prioritized…”

As the man rambled, FRIDAY chipping in when appropriate, Stephen listened closely for once. He watched Stark’s demeanor, his interactions, noting anything that he might be able to scribble down later. The task was far more interesting than he’d thought.

It dawned on Stephen, as Stark sat back down and the meeting trundled on, that this was actually a rather genius plan. Rhodes and Stark Gremlins were forcing him not to be angry at the engineer, leaving him actively seeking out sanguine parts of Stark’s character. 

It was surprisingly easy.

How infuriating. 

⭒✸⭒

The thing about having an entire week to complete a distasteful task was that it was frightfully easy to put off doing said task until the very last possible moment. Which was what had Tony scrunching his brow over a neurosurgery paper at eleven o’ clock at night on the Sunday of the second week.

He had nothing. Nothing. Peter had spent the last few hours before bed _grinning_ at him and telling him to stop being a stubborn asshole and just accept the positives. No amount of coercion had convinced the boy to spill his opinions. Tony knew better than to even start with Harley… 

He was not giving up. Beyond that, he was not _losing._ Not to Rhodey, and certainly not to Strange, who was apparently completely unruffled by all of this. So he _would_ find another three facts about Strange that were a safe distance from genuine compliments, or _so help him._

But there was only so much Google could do for him. 

“What do we know about Strange?” Tony asked aloud. 

FRIDAY answered with debatable helpfulness. “You have interacted with him comparatively little, boss. It is not unexpected that you know very little about him, especially about who he is after he became a sorcerer.”

Tony frowned. “I’ve been around him plenty.”

“Perhaps,” FRIDAY said. “But you do have a tendency to hyperfocus on things. It is possible that you can think of nothing now because your interactions with Strange have been exclusively based on things that do annoy you about him.”

“And your point is?”

FRIDAY flashed the lights, her imitation of a laugh or a sigh. “I suggest objective observance. It is the only way to gather accurate data.”

Tony pursed his lips, frowning at his half-done list. How could he just _decide_ to ignore the compounding aspects and past experiences that drove him up the fucking wall? He didn’t know what was underneath them, and he had no desire to find out. 

But the list was not going to fill itself. And the only thing Tony hated more than Stephen Strange was _losing_ to Stephen Strange.

“Call him,” Tony instructed. The lights flashed again, and FRIDAY patched the call onto Tony’s phone to allow him more control.

Despite the hour, Strange answered, because of course he did. “How did you get my number?”

“You really need to ask that?” Tony said, sarcasm already rioted to the surface of his awareness. 

“Right, I forget you have no sense of boundary or privacy. My mistake.”

Tony thought about hanging up on him. “I’m down three things.”

“That sounds like a personal problem.” Strange’s voice was impassive.

“It’s the _point_ of this impossible exercise.”

“I’m doing perfectly fine.”

Tony purred, “yes, well you have the advantage of being asked for good things about _me._ It’s really to be expected.”

Strange huffed, and Tony heard something swishing in the background. Pages, maybe, or that Cloak. Tony braced his elbows on his knees and glared at the phone. 

“I need objective data,” he told Strange. “Even Google has run out of positive things about you.”

 _“Google_ has a sense of boundary and privacy.”

“So your virtues are really so scarce?”

Strange, infuriatingly, maintained the flatness of his tone. “They’re only gifted to those who are worth ongoing attention.”

“‘Gift’ seems like a strong word.”

“It would not be an acceptable password, this is true.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Don’t agree with me, it makes me nervous.”

“I’ll go back to spurning your existence, if you prefer.”

Tony sat back with a huff, rolling his eyes. _Objective data,_ he repeated. _Objective data._ He had to let go, like Peter kept telling him. Be objective. 

“How well do you play the piano?” he asked. 

Strange was quiet over the line for a moment. “Read that on my file?”

“Unless you’ve wiped previous conversations out of my mind. I really wouldn’t be surprised; magically sparing me the memory of interaction with you seems like an actually valuable use for magic.”

“I can’t wipe memories,” Strange said, and for an instant, his indifference cracked. 

“Is that a problem?” Tony asked, a bit miffed. 

The flat tone returned with a snap. “Not for me. You, it seems, will have to continue suffering through recall of my superiority.”

“Fine.” Tony gritted his teeth. “Mind answering the question?”

Another short pause, during which Tony shredded an entire sheet of the notepad’s paper. Strange said, “I’m quite skilled at the instrument, though I can’t play for long periods of time anymore.”

“Because of the hand thing?”

“Yes, Stark, because of the ‘hand thing’.” Strange somehow managed to glower across the phone line. 

This line of conversation was not helping Tony with those empty bullet points. “Do you have other hobbies?”

“Balloon art,” Stephen said.

Tony fumbled for a moment. “Really?”

“No.”

“Very helpful.”

“I like martial arts and fencing. And reading. In as many languages as possible.”

Tony grabbed his pen. “How many?”

“Languages can I read? Fourteen. I can only speak six of them, though, as dialects like Sanskrit don't exactly have a lot of opportunity for pronunciation. What about you?”

“Five,” Tony said. “Spanish, Italian, Dari, German, and Japanese.”

“Impres—” Strange cut himself off, but it was too late.

“Was that a compliment?” Tony leaned forward.

“Fuck off, Stark.” 

Tony snorted, flipping the pen in his hand as he spoke into the device at his shoulder. “I knew it, you can hate, but you cannot deny my prodigiousness."

"Oh, I can deny anything." 

"Deny… your favorite food."

"No," Strange simpered. 

Tony rolled his eyes, the pen slipping between his fingers again. "Ha ha," he sighed. "Answer the question." 

"Absolutely not. You didn't spill your own hobbies; you have no further claim to information." 

"I make stuff. Obviously. You're supposed to be a genius."

"Was that a compliment, Stark?"

"Don't even start."

  
  


When Tony hung up, dropping the phone to the arm of the chair, he was surprised to find the time was now almost one-thirty.

How had it gone by so quickly?

⭒✸⭒

_Seven things that don’t annoy me about Stephen Strange:_

> _1\. He can portal just about everywhere in the world; I assume it means he travels a lot._

> _2\. He’s punctual._

> _3\. He can fly. Or the Cloak can. Cloak facts count._

> _4\. He can write a professional scientific paper._

> _5\. Apparently he can read and speak numerous languages._

> _6\. He’s witty. Entertainingly so when he’s not being a bitch. Which is all the time._

> _7\. Time goes by quick talking to him._

⭒✸⭒

_Positive things about Tony Stark:_

  * _He’s intelligent._
  * _He’s creative, in problem-solving and in brainstorming._
  * _He’s efficient._
  * _Wong likes him. So does the rest of the team._
  * _He’s quick-thinking._
  * _He’s tenacious/stubborn._
  * _He’s generous._
  * _He does things because he wants to win, not because he doesn't want to lose._
  * _He understands the world around him and the people he is close to._
  * _He speaks five languages._
  * _He’s fun to talk to._



⭒✸⭒

Stephen hated fighting in the rain. 

The gloomy atmosphere made the smog and dust feel stickier on his skin and in the air. Water soaked the Cloak and made his robes heavy, slowing his movements and making him feel far less effective. His eyes stung from the cold droplets blown at an angle into his face. Wild hair frizzed and shone and tangled, and he could hardly see far enough to direct a proper spell, let alone fight. 

At least the water cooled him down. And the shine of his magic through the mist looked beautiful. As far as found-positives went, that wasn’t bad. 

Tony Stark was making him see the good in everything these days. 

He hurled a spike of magic, then wrapped the _Crimson Bands_ around his hands as he threw himself against another attacker. That Atlantic experimentation had indeed been fishy; they were fighting a number of aquatically enhanced individuals in the shallows of the sea near the edge of the complex. Stephen was trying not to get too distracted by the frankly fascinating abilities these people were exhibiting. As far as he could tell, any physical contact with water allowed them to manipulate its state—vaporizing or freezing it with only the energy transferred from their own bodies. 

He wondered if they could do it with any type of liquid. Perhaps their was a certain polarization factor necessary—

A wave of ice shattered toward Stephen, clipping him _far_ too close for comfort. The Cloak yanked him out of harm’s way, needing enough force to bruise his collarbones against its clasps. 

_Right. Focusing._

“Hey Doctor Strange! What’s the status on the East side?” Peter’s voice filtered through their communications.

Stephen’s comms were notoriously spotty. His magic tended to fry connections or distort voices, which left him unable to predict which lines he’d actually be able to hear and respond to. Only Peter and Natasha were anything but static to him this time around. 

“East is up!” Stephen replied, because it was Peter, who would understand. He caught another blast of steam against his _Ruby Rings_ and redirected it to take out an unfortunate enemy.

He could hear the kid grinning. “Ha, TOP. Steve says you caught the most enemies—the rest of us are coming to your side to help finish them off.”

“Great.” 

The others were managing stragglers around the island while Stark found his way into the complex to hack into the mainframe. A good plan, as usual. It wasn’t their fault the rain had made things more complicated. 

Stephen ducked a gunshot, sending a spear of energy to knock the weapon out of the attacker’s hand. It splashed into the roiling sea beneath them. 

Dropping to the sea beside it, Stephen played for time. He was out of the range of the state-change these people could encourage. It gave him time to slip his hand into his sling-ring. The salt water trickled stingingly down his throat as Stephen gripped his magic with tight fists. 

Peter swung around the side of the beach just in time to witness Stephen’s flare of power, slamming the mirror dimension outward around him. Rain hissed off the fractured edges of reality. Stephen scooped a large chunk of seawater up along with the remaining assultants, slamming them out and then back into the dimension in quick succession. They reacted as he’d hoped, attacking recklessly through the water that suddenly surrounded them.

Thus, Stephen was left standing in the retreating tide looking at a giant ice-cube sealed around the legs of a dozen unfortunate experimental humans. He saluted impishly too it, then shoved it into the mirror dimension for safe-keeping. The government could deal with it later. 

Peter chuckled, splashing into the sea beside him. Shivering, Stephen smirked back at him. “Told you I was up,” he said.

“Never doubted you for a second.”

Peter cocked his head then, listening to a transmission Stephen couldn’t hear. He told Stephen, “Steve says we should meet them outside the complex. And Tony says you’re a showoff.”

Stephen rolled his eyes. “Tell him he wasn’t even here. He doesn’t know the half of it.”

Peter winced, then said sheepishly, “he says he doesn’t need to be present to know you’re being pretentious.”

Stephen leaned forward and raised his voice slightly, speaking through Peter’s comm: “I’m not going to argue with you through your son! Meet us outside the complex.”

A swipe of his hands later, they were stepping onto solid ground outside a chain-link fence. Stephen hugged his arms around himself, his hair dripping into his eyes, and tried to ignore the rain. It was definitely dreary.

Most of the others were already there. Stark strolled nonchalantly through the fence a moment later, a single gauntlet summoned to fry the chains and let him through. The rain dripped off his chin, upturned with self-satisfaction, and turned his black undersuit even darker. He was shivering intensely. It didn’t seem to register to him. 

“So,” he purred, “how did it go?”

“Seamlessly,” Natasha crowed. The rain was glimmering off the muzzle of her pistol. “And the inside?”

Stark raised his other hand, letting them glimpse the thumb-drive he clutched inside. Expertly coiled fingers kept it out of the rain. “Every sinister plan our scientists concocted. I took their encryptions, too, to get rid of them.”

He tossed a second stick at Stephen, who fumbled to catch it. Stephen’s hands were shaking wildly, from scars and cold, but there was enough magic flickering through them to fry the internal data of the thumb-drive without much effort. 

“Done,” he said, handing it back to Stark. 

The brush of their hands was brief as Stark went to take the stick, but it was enough. Stephen frowned, instantly moving to wrap his hand around Stark’s wrist. “You’re freezing,” he said accusingly. 

Stephen’s grip was quite weak, and Stark pulled himself away easily. “It’s the damn weather.”

“One of them touched you, didn’t they?” Stephen eyed the man’s sleeve—yes, he could see the telltale gleam if ice. The rain on Stark’s arm had been frozen by unfortunate contact with one of the enhanced. 

“Okay, new plan,” Stephen announced. “Back to the Compound, right now.”

Half a second and a flurry of sparks later, nine heroes were dripping onto Stark’s expensive carpet. The warm air made Stephen relax despite himself. The Cloak tucked tight around his shoulders and ankles.

Stark stepped forward. “Shoo, go,” he told them. “You’ll ruin the floor. You all know where the dry clothes are; make use of them.”

Stephen didn’t, in fact, know, but he wasn’t about to mention it. Stepping back behind the stampede, he flicked his wrists to dry his clothes in a display of magic Wong would have lectured him for. He gave Stark a parting sneer when the man ducked out of the room out of habit, and got a snarl in return. Then the engineer was gone, and Stephen watched the far door with a glower quite a bit softer than what he’d intended. 

He lifted his sling-ring to move back to the Sanctum, but a voice stopped him before he managed to make his escape.

“That’s a neat trick,” Peter said. “Drying off, I mean.”

“It’s technically frivolous, so don’t tell anyone,” Stephen replied. 

“Do you have to go back?”

“Huh?”

Peter shrugged. “I mean, if you’re busy that’s fine. But I just figured since you have to be back for debriefing later, we could play a game or something.”

Stephen stared at him. Peter’s genuine smile only got wider. 

⭒✸⭒

Tony walked halfway into the lounge, dressed and still drying his hair with a hand towel, only to be stopped in his tracks by the sound of laughter.

Peter and Strange were sitting across from each other against the lounge’s coffee table. There was a cribbage board stretched between them, the green pegs slightly ahead of the red. Peter was grinning widely, giggling as he added up a particularly large total. And across the table, Strange’s low voice did the same. 

Tony didn’t think he’d ever heard Stephen laugh before. 

He left the room as silently as he’d entered, and mentally put his money on Peter. The boy was unstoppable when it came to cribbage.

⭒✸⭒

Stephen was watching his tea steep inside his cup, thinking about nothing at all when the knock echoed through the Sanctum. It was Sunday morning, cool and windy, and he’d left the windows open for a little breeze. He had no Kamar-Taj duties since Friday, so it was unusual for someone to want his attention. Stephen looked up and yelled up the stairs, _“what?”_

The reply came from the front door, to his shock. “It’s Sunday, wizard! I’m out of time!”

Stark. Stephen straightened, a hand shooting out to wrap around the handle of his mug. He glared at the door until it caught his drift and swung open. 

Tony Stark breezed into the Sanctum in that way he did, the way that made people accept his presence instantly, as if he owned the place. His sunglasses were slipping down his nose and their temples made his hair stick out over one of his ears. A mottled grey sweatshirt, the orange accents matching the tint of his lenses, curled down to meet dark-toned jeans. He had no right to look as elegant as he did in them. 

“Well if it isn’t my least favorite homosapien,” Stephen drawled. 

“Hello to you too, most irritating of neanderthals.”

“What do you want?”

Stark looked him up and down, and Stephen was suddenly quite conscious of the way he’d tucked himself comfortably into the corner of the second step of the foyer’s staircase. His tea was propped on his knee, and the Cloak was bunched behind him. He really hadn’t been expecting anyone…

Stark brandished a pad of paper, flapping loosely along its spiral-bound top. “Data.”

“Right.” Stephen swept his legs out and stood up, managing not to spill a drop of his drink. He couldn’t help himself, drawing on his magic as he asked, “Tea?”

Instantly, they were seated around the cracking kitchen table, Stephen with his cup already pressed to his lips. Stark stumbled, knocking into the table, and Stephen hid an amused smile. 

“Do _not_ do that,” Stark grumbled, settling into his chair after a moment. He eyed the mug that had appeared before him. 

“It’s not magic,” Stephen told him before he asked. “Just translocated from the pot I brewed earlier.”

“Herbs,” Stark snorted. “Great.”

Stephen raised a single chiseled eyebrow and waited. The mug steamed, and the silence grew awkward until Stark heaved an exaggerated groan and wrapped his hands around the ceramic. He made direct eye-contact as he took a sip.

The mug was back down against the table a half-second later. “Holy _shit_ , that’s delicious.”

Stephen grinned, not even trying to hide it. His eyebrow crept higher as Stark took a sloppy gulp of tea, absolutely heedless of the temperature, because of course he did.

“What is in that?” Stark demanded. “What the fuck? What is it, Strange, you cannot keep such secrets.”

Stephen sipped his drink, as irreverently as he could manage. 

“This is… superior leaf juice.”

Stephen choked. “Please _never_ use the word ‘juice’ in that context ever again.”

“Then spill the beans!”

“There will be no coffee in this establishment.”

Stark braced a hand on the table, pointing aggressively at Stephen with the other. “Wordplay. Intolerable.”

“I am generally intolerable, as you are so fond of reminding me.” Stephen sipped his tea again, feeling warmth travel through to the tips of his fingers. 

“Yes, speaking of that.” Stark had dropped his notebook after the teleportation, and fumbled off the side of the chair to pick it up. “We’re going undercover to figure out some things I might actually like about you.”

“Hooray.”

“You need a list too, so don’t whine.”

Stephen refrained from mentioning that he’d finished his list on Monday and been collecting plenty of information since then. Somehow, he’d rather mention just about anything else. 

“Ask away,” Stephen said.

“What’s in the tea?” Stark replied instantly. “This cannot be normal.”

“You just don’t know the right street vendors,” Stephen said flatly. 

“Nepal?”

“The Mandelibus Dimension.”

Tony looked down into his mug, eyes narrowing. “Interdimensional tea. I should’ve guessed. Is nothing you do human?”

“Mm, pretty much.” Stephen steadied his shaking hands on his mug. “You have two more questions left.”

“Alright, alright, Aladdin. Give me a break.” Stark leaned forward, bracing one elbow on the table and resting his chin on his knuckle. His russet eyes surveyed Stephen. The sorcerer had the express impression he was being analyzed. Only years of muscle memory kept Stephen from shifting uncomfortably; the feeling of cynosure was once again foreign to him, so many lifetimes years after the accident. 

“What do you do all day?” Stark finally asked. 

“When I’m not saving all your pathetic mortal asses? Study.”

“What do you _like_ to do?”

Stephen raised an eyebrow. “Study,” he repeated.

“Oh come on, use your imagination.”

Spinning the mug between his fingers, Stephen watched the little whirlpool of liquid form inside. He shrugged. “It’s pretty empty around here, most days. The Cloak and I just…” he searched for an appropriate word. “... exist. It’s peaceful.”

“Sound dreadfully tedious.” Stark gulped the other half of his tea.

“Just because you’re a raucous invasion of the earthly plane doesn’t mean all of us maintain the same degree of disruption,” Stephen snapped.

“Oh I prefer ‘strident’ to ‘raucous’, if at all possible,” Stark simpered in reply. 

“I’m sure you do.”

“And why might that be?”

Stephen brushed his hair off his forehead. “Alliteration.”

Stark, to his utter shock, actually chuckled at that. “You’re one to talk, _Stephen Strange,”_ he said.

Stephen spread a hand in mock surprise. “Oh, look at that! He knows my first name.”

“Only because of Google. Half the things I know about you are because of Google. Hence the reason I’m suffering your presence as we speak.” Stark gestured expansively. 

“One question left.” Stephen sipped his tea. “Make it count.”

Stark looked at him for a long moment, considering. “Why does Peter like you?”

Stephen fumbled for a second. A bit of tea sloshed over onto his fingers, making his scars glint wetly. He wished, suddenly, for his Rubik’s Cube, or some other way to occupy his useless hands. 

“I don’t know,” he said. 

“That’s not an answer.”

“Says who?” Stephen grumbled, not caring if it sounded defensive. Maybe it was the fucking truth. Maybe he had no idea why, in this one-in-fourteen-million chance of a timeline, someone like Peter Parker would decide he was worth having around. Stark’s approach made a hell of a lot more sense to Stephen. 

“Take a wild guess, then,” Stark said. His expression had changed, a tough of steel filtering into his voice, and Stephen glared. 

“No,” he said.

That tough hardened into an edge. “Yeah, I can’t come up with anything either.”

Stephen put his mug down. The cuff of his sleeve was wet, smearing glossy lines against his skin. One, two, three, ten, _fourteen million._

Stephen blinked, and for a moment, behind his eyelids, he saw. He saw starlight shining between shattered armor, pulsing out in rivulets around dead eyes, gathering in stillness like reflection pools in the groove of a shattered collarbone. He saw sand and glass, captured in the ever-repeating gravity of an hourglass, light reflecting through a prism in every color of the rainbow—reality, soul, mind, time, space, power. He saw gold uru between them. He saw red and silver nanotech around them. He saw final words, always the same, _‘I am’ ‘I am’ ‘I am’._

They echoed through the multiverse, those words. And Stephen had heard them, and never wanted to again. 

One. One, two, three, ten, fourteen million. 

“Why do you hate me, Stark?”

There was movement, but Stephen didn’t see it. He was looking at the spilled tea and seeing fire. 

“What?” Stark demanded. 

_Peter likes me because_ _he didn’t have to hear the words._

“You heard what I said. What in hell’s name have I ever done to deserve it? I at least deserve an explanation.”

This time he did look at Stark, eyes flashing, hands shaking. The edge of steel to the man’s expression had turned to a knife, an axe, a broadsword. Stephen met it with a weapon of his own. 

“What have you done?” Stark said, dangerously calmly. “You want to know what you’ve done.”

“Why do you hate me?”

“Because you _knew,”_ Stark snarled. He was on his feet, the table rocking under the assault of his hands suddenly braced across its surface. “You knew. And you chose to lie.”

“There was no other way.”

“I don’t care! You took the choice away from me, Strange. You set me toward a sacrifice and didn’t even have the decency to explain. I don’t understand—I can’t understand, because you never bothered to fucking explain!” Stark’s eyes were dark, flashing with fury and helplessness and _hatred._

“Maybe there was no other way. Maybe that wasn't bullshit,” Stark continued. “Maybe you took a chance, and it paid off—that’s fine. It stopped being fine when it turned everything you ever said to me into a lie, a manipulation, a double-edged blade. Why did you get to make the decision? Why _you,_ when I was the one who would lay the final blow? Why you _,_ when you got to take the coward’s way out and left me unable to trust anyone at all? Why you _,_ when I had to _watch you die?”_

Stark was panting, fire behind his eyes, and Stephen could taste it.

“Thanos is dead,” Stephen said, very slowly. “And the universe is recovering. The universe is _happy.” You’re happy._ “And you’re going to _blame_ me for it?”

“I spent a year half-dead. I had to hold my son as he turned to dust because of you.”

“And you got to see him come _back_ because of me!” Stephen’s voice climbed, as scalding as the liquid coating his hands. “I’m not going to apologize for that.” 

“Then I don’t know why I even bother,” Stark snarled, stalking backward. His mug was overturned on the table, empty. 

Stephen clenched his fist. And clenched it, and clenched it, feeling his weakened tendons scream, feeling the phantom weight of the Eye against his throat. “I saw you burn,” he said, and his voice was thunderous. “I saw you bleed and fall and scream and burn and _die,_ a million times, ten million times, and again.”

Stark stopped, just for a moment, in the doorway.

“I didn’t want you to die. I didn’t want Peter, Pepper, Steve, Nat, Wong to die. I saw countless pathways, countless scenarios, and I didn’t want the universe to end. I didn’t want one without you in it. So I chose to save you.”

Stephen looked up at the still form in the doorway, turned away from him. 

“Do you really hate me for that?”

Stark put a hand on the doorframe, face turned profile in the shadows. His fingers were shaking. His shoulders were shaking. There was a scar down his neck, reaching from his ear to the base of his spine, and Stephen knew exactly how much it had bled. 

“It shouldn’t have been you,” Stephen said softly. “But it’s always you, Tony. Every time.”

Stark turned back to look at him. Just for a moment, just for an instant, he looked back, and he nodded.

And then he was gone, leaving starlight behind. 

⭒✸⭒

_Seven things I like about Stephen Strange:_

> _1\. He’s perceptive._

> _2\. He doesn’t complain about things that really matter. Doesn’t really complain at all._

> _3\. He's clever, and savage when provoked (or just when an opportunity presents itself.)_

> _4\. He’s got a nice laugh._

> _5\. Peter likes him._

> _6\. He makes kick-ass tea, or at least knows where to get it._

> _7. ~~He~~_

> ~~_He wants_~~ ~~_When I_~~

> ~~_He’s willing to_ ~~

> _He’ll do the right thing, whatever it takes._

⭒✸⭒

_Positive things about Tony Stark:_

  * _He’s ambitious._
  * _Any situation he gets himself into, he’ll get himself out._
  * _He can stop an army with a smirk._
  * _He’s fearless._
  * _You will never meet anyone as loyal._
  * _He huffs when he laughs, like he’s been taken by surprise._
  * _He’s righteous._
  * _He wants what’s best for everything and everyone._
  * _And he actually works to make it so._
  * _He’s one of a kind, and I don’t regret betraying him to save his life. One future. I did what I had to do._



⭒✸⭒

“Hey Tony!” 

The call spiraled excitedly down into Tony’s workshop, catching the man up to his elbows in grease and hyperfocus. He blinked and looked up. “Are you bleeding or on fire?”

Harley’s chuckle was irreverent. “No, but Pepper’s here! Rhodey, too, so get up here.”

Morgan’s voice joined the boy’s. “Takeout!”

“How can I resist?” Tony rocked to his feet, straightening out his stained and grimy t-shirt to the best of his ability. He smelled of metal and sweat, and creativity still had his fingers twitching. There was enough oil under his fingers that he didn’t make it upstairs until seven minutes of scrubbing had passed. 

“Welcome to the mortal plane!” Pepper said when Tony emerged. 

He smiled at her, spreading his hands for applause—or perhaps in a shrug. “The promise of company and sustenance moves even one such as I.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Rhodey huffed. He spun a box over to Tony. Tony could tell by the scent of the spices that they’d gone Greek tonight. Good; he could use a gyro, or seventeen, and there was all of nothing whatsoever that could go wrong with grilled lamb. 

The kids pounded into the room, filing in around the table, and Tony looked toward the door. “Just us, or do you want me to call May and Hap?”

“I didn’t buy enough,” Rhodey said with some slight consternation. “My bad.”

Tony waved a hand. “That’s alright. I’m sure those two are just fine not being interrupted.”

Harley slammed the butt of his fork against the table, making Tony jump. The engineer turned a glower on him. 

“Let me at it!” Harley proclaimed, pointing his fork dramatically toward the half-open takeout box. Rhodey quickly deposited three more on the table behind it as Peter and Morgan cheered, their own support ensemble for the dinner demand. 

“By all means,” Tony snorted. 

What followed was a frenzy of utensils and fingers and demands, the group scrambling to stake a claim of the food as manners were forgotten in favor of flavor. Tony ended up with two sliced halves of a gyro and a good helping of spanakopita. He’d lost out on the falafel. Oh well; he could probably steal bites off of Peter’s plate if the boy chose to humor him and turn his spider-sense elsewhere. 

They ate in companionable silence for a while. Tony loved watching the kids enjoy things, whether food or activities or each other. He could hardly remember what the Compound was like during the school year. Summer freedom stretched for all of them. 

“That was good,” Tony said after he’d scraped the last of the feta cheese from his plate. 

“Yes,” purred Harley. The last sound was extended in a satisfied hiss. Tony contained an amused snort. 

Looking at Rhodey, Tony gestured widely and prompted, “What do we say?”

“Thank you, Colonel Rhodes,” Peter, Harley, and Morgan chorused with varying degrees of enthusiasm. It was as good as Rhodey was going to get, and he knew it. The man laughed and waved them away. 

“Don’t thank me,” he said, “it was purely an excuse to get Pepper over so we can interrogate your dad.”

Tony tensed, suddenly uncomfortable. “Interrogate me about what?”

Pepper leaned forward, grinning and bracing one elbow on the table. “Interrogate you about the wizard, obviously.”

Tony grumbled. He took an aggressively long sip of his water, though he found it was more from self-consciousness than anger. “Interrogate the wizard. You have his email.”

“I heard the missions have been going more smoothly,” Pepper provided. 

“Yes,” Tony admitted.

“And your lists?”

Tony grunted, pulling his notepad out of his pocket and waving it at her. “You guys bought me Greek just to poke fun at me about _this?”_

Five identical grins, completely unapologetic, flashed at him from around the table. Tony rolled his eyes. He saw Peter trying to peer at the writing on the pad and quickly tucked it into his pocket. 

Too quickly. 

“Of course,” Rhodey agreed. “Fourth week and all. I haven’t had to read anything out, so I assume it’s going well.”

“Yes. And it’s not affecting the team anymore, so it’s really none of your business.”

Pepper laughed, nudging him with her elbow. “Come on, Tony, give us the scoop.”

“There’s no scoop. Absolutely nothing in the scoop.” Tony felt his face heat, and he moved out of range of Pepper’s elbow. 

Vaguely, Tony searched for the resentment that was so familiar when it came to Strange, so common when his friends took to poking at him. They tried to rile him on purpose, with the subject known to systematically remove all of his stubborn walls, and Tony knew it. But this time, he couldn’t seem to find his anger. 

He wasn’t angry. And yet, here he was, hot and bothered and self-conscious.

_Well, shit._

“I think Doctor Strange is cool,” Peter provided, taking a long slurp of his water. 

“Parker, you think _everything_ is cool,” Harley shot back.

“Except you.”

“Ah!”

Peter grinned. “You walked right into that one.”

“Please don’t bicker while we’re making fun of your father,” Pepper said, waving at the two, who had the audacity to actually shut up. Tony gestured mutely, offended. 

“Scoop, Dad,” Morgan said. She jabbed at him with her spoon. 

“Ow! Okay, I talked to him. A couple of times.” Tony didn’t know why he felt like he was confessing to a crime by speaking the words. They only furthered his blush—because hell _no,_ that was exactly what he was doing. 

“And you’re both still alive?” Rhodey whistled. “Wow.”

“We aren’t _that_ bad, c’mon,” Tony grunted. He fidgeted with his fork, scraping it through the drips and smears of tzatziki sauce on his plate. 

“I mean, yeah, it’s annoying, but you’re justified,” Rhodey shrugged and gave him a grin, “as you’re so fond of reminding us. He did play god over the multiverse.”

“He did what he had to do.”

Silence.

Tony looked up from the green and white leftovers of his plate, the screech of the fork’s prongs suddenly far too loud. Peter was sipping his drink, trying to hide a smile. The other four of Tony’s companions were staring at him as if he’d just grown an extra head. 

“What?” Tony demanded. “What?”

Rhodey looked at Pepper, wide-eyed. “Hell,” he said. “This is working even better than I thought.”

“What are you talking about?” Tony crossed his arms. He didn’t throw his fork at anyone, but only because he had _a lot_ of self-control. 

“You just defended Doctor Strange.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

Tony did throw his fork—badly. “Stop talking nonsense. I hate the guy.”

“Except not, apparently, for that thing you’ve been bitching about for almost a year now,” Rhodey said.

“Maybe I’ve forgiven him.”

“And hell has frozen over.”

“Doctor Strange is definitely cool enough for that,” Peter contributed. 

Tony snorted. “I wouldn’t go _that_ far.”

“Hm.”

Harley swiped the last of the spanakopita. “Maybe we should invite _him_ over for Greek.”

⭒✸⭒

Stephen sat cross-legged in front of the Sanctum fireplace, focusing on the small flames that danced within. Once upon a time, this had been the only source of heat for the whole of the building, and the age was still visible written into every crack in the bricks. Stephen's shaking hands drifted slowly, forming the necessary shapes to draw Mystic energy. Nothing happened. 

He couldn't focus. Sighing, Stephen dropped his hands against his knees and closed his eyes to try to abate the headache he could feel worming it's way to fruition. 

His head was full. Stuffed to the brim with thoughts and memories, as though Tony's acknowledgment—forgiveness, even—of what Stephen had done had lowered some wall in the sorcerer's mind erected for protection, safekeeping. And now all Stephen could do was think, think about magic, think about the Time Stone, think about grief, think about Tony Stark. Thoughts swirled and crowded. Each was flavored with emotions Stephen didn’t have the mindspace to put names to, an amalgam of unidentified _sensation_ that hurt, somewhere in the center of his chest, but somehow made him feel lighter, too. 

His notepad was open on his knee, flipped to the very last page. He’d filled the others. They weren’t really lists, not anymore; they were thoughts. Thoughts scribbled in clumsy, broken handwriting. Thoughts recorded in ink and nothing more, without those overwhelming emotions attached.

Objective data.

The Cloak, quiet against his shoulders, fluttered. Stephen tore his gaze away from the fire in time to see it retreat away from the small end table near one of the chairs and offer him his Rubik’s Cube. Smiling, Stephen took the puzzle. He gave his relic a pat it returned. 

The cube was already half solved. Stephen took half a minute to build it up the rest of the way, then started offhandedly twisting to make patterns in the three-by-three surface: checkerboards and flowers and stripes. It was enchanted—which had been an accident—so sometimes the colored squares would move or divide. Today, they cooperated, glittering slightly when he fiddled too long but not shifting completely. 

“What are you doing?”

_“Shit—”_

The voice shocked Stephen halfway to his feet, hands outstretched defensively, cube and notepad crashing to the ground. Instinctual magic flared, his aura visible.

“Woah, woah,” said Tony Stark, raising his hands where he stood in the doorway. 

“What are you doing here?” Stephen demanded. “How the fuck did you even get in?”

“The door opened,” Tony said, pointing quickly toward the foyer. 

“That does not alleviate the need for knocking,” Stephen huffed, even as he wondered frantically why the wards would decide to let Stark in today. Or any day. Ever. It certainly didn’t have anything to do with the fact that they were attuned to his subconscious in order to properly draw from his power as Master of their Sanctum and protect consistently. That was obviously not a factor in this fluke. 

Tony didn’t have the decency to look repentant. “It’s sweltering in here,” he observed, glaring at the fire as though it had personally offended him. 

Stephen took the moment to swipe up his notebook, crinkled from where it had fallen, and tuck it into his robes. “It’s a sorcerer thing.”

Not looking at all convinced, Stark wandered into the room and tugged at the small window out to the street. Stephen hadn’t really noticed the temperature, but the breeze that swirled into the room was an aggressive contrast, and he leaned into it. Stark gave him a Look. Stephen wondered which Look it was. He kind of wanted to preform a study in order to categorize and evaluate each of Looks for proper understanding. 

“Why are you here?” Stephen asked, cocking his head. His thoughts were swirling even faster now, unnamed emotions tugging at him, and he wanted to see where those would end up if he moved closer to Stark. 

Dangerous. Dangerous mindspace. He needed his wall back, needed his defensive anger back. He needed _something._

Stark shrugged. “I left in a huff the other day.”

“You usually do.”

“I haven’t had very many chances.”

And yes, Stephen could see it now; it was certainly too hot in this room. “So you’re back for anger management, then?”

“I’m certainly working on my self control.”

“It’s not even Sunday.”

“I’m working ahead.”

There was something kind behind the words, and Stephen’s thoughts calmed. Like a breath of cool breeze sweeping through a torrid room. “Glad to see you’re increasing productivity.”

“And reducing stress.”

Stephen smiled. “Tea?”

⭒✸⭒

_Seven things I like about Stephen Strange:_

> _1\. HOW does he have tricks/skills for every situation? This cannot be allowed._

> _2\. He's sensitive and empathetic. Just kind of weird about it._

> _3\. He isn’t easily insulted._

> _4\. Those one-of-a-kind eyes._

> _5\. He likes old music and can quote every Disney movie by heart. Peter would be proud._

> _6\. Cheekbones??? This cannot be allowed, either._

> _7\. He can solve a Rubik’s Cube. Faster than me. I will never recover._

⭒✸⭒

_Positive things about Tony Stark:_

> _…_

  * _He’s selfless._
  * _He lifts his right eyebrow when he’s amused, his left when he’s confused, and both when he’s genuinely unimpressed._
  * _His smile is nice. When it reaches his eyes, its stunning._
  * _He’s kind._
  * _He knows what people need._
  * _He’s got a better smirk than me. He invented the smirk._
  * _He holds the team together._
  * _He’s human. In all the best ways._
  * _If I didn’t hate him, I’d probably be in love with him._
  * _Apparently I don’t hate him._
  * _Fuck._



⭒✸⭒

Tony landed in the rubble-dusted, cinder-stained intersection after the last of the monsters had been dropped. They were interdimensional this time, to his satisfaction. Tony preferred magic beasts to aliens—exclusively because Stephen got as ruffled as the rest of them by the end of such battles. It was infuriating beyond belief when everyone else limped home while the wizard didn’t have but a _hair_ out of place.

Tony thought he might have to pull out a thesaurus to come up with some other adjectives beyond 'infuriating' _._ Because that one just wasn’t nuanced enough, anymore. 

Tony let his helmet dissolve, yawning wide. Sweat coated his forehead and neck, and when he wiped his face, blood streaked his face from his nose. He held in a sneeze. 

“Report? Everyone?” he said, raising his wrist for the secondary comms. It was far too hot to summon his helmet again. 

“Ugh,” came the chorus of groans in voices Tony recognized. 

He grinned. “Anyone want to be more specific?”

“Pretty sure we broke the damage baseline, Mr. Stark…” Peter’s voice sighed. The kid had been on evacuation patrol, hands as full as they would have been on the front line. The battle had come quick, and gone quick, ugly with damage and darkened by projectiles and shattered glass. They’d needed almost everyone on the team to take protection rolls to have any chance of getting the civilians _out._

Tony looked around at the rubble that coated the street like snowdrifts, and winced. “That was mostly Stephen’s fault,” he commented.

It was. But that, in turn, was because Stephen had been one of the only ones actually _fighting_ and not running evacuation. Rhodey and Stephen’s kill-zone looked like the battleground it had been, even after the corpses of the monsters puffed back to whatever otherworldly plane they had come from. 

“Convenient,” Tony muttered. He kicked at a pile of bricks and glass. It collapsed in a deafening clatter, and Tony winced again. 

“Let’s _not_ play the blame-everything-on-the-sorcerer game,” Bruce sighed. He was doing a lot of sighing—which was justified, seeing as the world had just tried to end on his holiday. 

“But I _like_ that game,” Tony huffed. He could feel the warmth of his amusement as he spoke the words, his fondness that might have been there a whole lot longer than just these few weeks…

“It’s in good faith,” Peter assured. 

Bruce snorted—or maybe that was Steve, but it was Bruce who said, “I can’t help but notice Strange’s input is suspiciously absent, here.”

“Yeah, something to contribute, Merlin?” Tony chuckled, flying up to the edge of a crumbling rooftop. 

There was no answer.

Tony frowned. “Stephen?”

The whir of repulsors signaled Rhodey’s arrival beside him, and Peter swung up a moment later. The others should be converging to his location as quickly as their respective powers allowed. Peter kicked up a flurry of dust upon his landing, and this time Tony did sneeze. Dried blood flaked in the air in front of him. Gross.

“He used some impressive magic,” Rhodey said. “Maybe he burnt out his comm completely.”

“Wasn’t he with you?” Tony wondered. He turned in a slow circle, trying to see a shard of red weaving around the buildings. “The damn wizard can _fly,_ for fuck’s sake.” He was usually the first one to check in… 

“We were kind of fighting a bunch of light-based crab-soul monsters,” Rhodey pointed out.

Peter hummed sagely. “One can get preoccupied.”

The huffing of breath signaled Steve’s tumbling climb onto the roof. Tony gave him a smirk; they both were perfectly aware Tony chose high places on purpose. A frown swallowed the expression before Tony could mean it. 

Rhodey put a hand on his shoulder. Lightly. “He can portal, too,” Rhodey said, and his voice was tight. “He should be here.”

_Shit._

“Where’d you see him last?” Tony asked. Demanded.

“I—East, I think.”

Tony was already leaping off the roof, his helmet forming back around his dust-streaked face. There was only clear sound through the comms. That crackle, that cyan-silver static of Stephen’s magic shorting alongside electricity, was gone. 

And there was still silence.

He fly high, searching the grey and brown for the deep red and dusty blue that were so characteristic of Stephen Strange. The streets were barren from the evacuation team; a figure should be easy to spot. But anything could have happened, anything at all in all this rubble and monstrous force and terrible otherworldliness, and Tony was suddenly wishing it had been aliens after all, aliens, and he could watch his sorcerer be maddeningly immaculate and utterly untouched and _safe—_

There. A spot of fluttering red, surrounded by what looked like half a building. 

Tony dropped like a stone, folding away his suit too hastily for his landing and leaving himself stumbling. Broken glass crunched beneath the thin souls of his undersuit. The concrete Tony raced over was hot—unnaturally so. Mystically so.

Stephen was propped up against the corner of two foundation walls, ruby redness draped and pinned around him, his face obscured. There was dust in his hair. Tony knelt. Uneven debris dug painfully into his knees.

“Stephen?” he said. 

Not all that red was the Cloak. 

Stephen’s eyes flickered at Tony’s words, a bit of a breath escaping between lips that tried to quirk. A slow slick of blood coated them. He made a noise that could have been a word or a laugh or a huff, but came out only as a cough.

Tony reached out. Only caffeine made his hands this shaky. All that blood—was it all Stephen’s? The sorcerer’s robes were thick, and they soaked up the fluid like sponges, leaving long streaks against Tony’s skin when he touched. 

He found the wound before he knew he’d begun looking. There was a cut, a _rent_ in Stephen’s form, starting halfway up the right side of his neck and reaching to the cover of his robes. The skin was—it was nauseatingly ragged. Like something had stabbed a pencil into Stephen and just pulled. 

Only caffeine and _utter horror_ made Tony’s hands this shaky. 

Stephen hissed, clouded eyes scattering when Tony brushed against his collar. He made that noise again. That wet, enervated cough. Like an engine fighting to haul a heavy load. Like a piston on its last legs.

“Hey, hey,” Tony soothed, suddenly not sure his own voice was connected to him anymore. “It’s okay, yeah? Shit, Stephen, how are you still conscious…”

Tony’s gauntlet formed over one hand. He reached out with the other, ever precise, and eased Stephen’s clothes away from the wound. It ended near his armpit, deeper in the muscled flesh, and _Tony didn’t know how it had happened._

He didn’t know how he let it happen. He didn’t know how he’d ever thought this could be acceptable; ever wished actual harm upon this untouchable being; ever _considered_ this when he’d cursed the universe and the wizard that had picked it, back when everything was still broken. 

He’d been wrong. He’d been _so wrong._

“I need backup. Medical. Now.” 

Tony’s zero canons sealed the wound as quickly as Tony could direct, the Cloak immobilizing Stephen’s neck. He set his uncovered hand against the rubble to support himself. It slipped on blood and the hard corners of a box. 

The Rubik's Cube had fallen against the Stephen’s side. As Tony watched, the squares divided themselves, quadrupling in number. 

Beside them, smeared with liquid and rumpled from its connection, was a pocket-sized spiral notebook. 

⭒✸⭒

One clean streak of magma. 1850 degrees at its average, and moving slowly with a density of 3100 kg/m3. Searing, sparking, cracking in the crust of the earth in its advance. Hot to a point most couldn’t even quantify and energetic in a way very few understood.

Someone had poured magma down his neck. 

It was a habit built on the memories of countless deaths and lives and years not to scream. When something broke, when something singed, when something hurt, he learned not to let it draw his voice. 

Never safe to scream.

He tried to explain this to the celestial in his presence. Not safe. He’d saved its life enough times already. He was in no condition to save it now. 

_‘I know, Merlin. Fair’s fair I return the favor, then?'_

Celestials owed him nothing. He’d never…

_‘No, I owe you. At least twenty bucks, I’m sure of it.’_

The stars were so bright. They made him laugh. They made him safe. 

It felt better to sleep. 

⭒✸⭒

“I don’t know whether to be relieved or terrified that you’ve memorized the layout of the Compound’s hospital wing, Wong.” 

The sorcerer gave Tony a look that said he should damn well be thankful and ruefully admire Wong’s foresight. He was probably right. Tony had the bloody, semi-unconscious form of Stephen Strange curling into his chest and telling him it wasn’t safe, calling him a star, mumbling that Tony should leave because Stephen couldn’t protect him this time.

Which Tony wasn’t thinking about. There was no universe where his favorite rival and best enemy was worrying about _Tony_ while possibly bleeding out in a pile of rubble. That would be bad for both of their reputations. 

“Of course I have them memorized,” Wong snapped disapprovingly, because that was just how Wong was. “He gets injured more than he breathes. I’m happy to see you’ve finally decided to notice you care.”

And before explaining the meaning of _that_ not-so-cryptic proclamation, Tony was left with the door of a surgery room slammed in his face.

⭒✸⭒

There were a very strict set of parameters that had to be completed in order for Stephen to enjoy spending time in a hospital.

Suffice to say, these were not currently being met. 

“Relax,” the woman whose name he really should have been told by now told him for the eleventh time. “It’s an infirmary, not a hospital. I’m sure you can make an exception.”

He’d been lucid fourteen minutes and the doctors were already done with his shit. Good. They were private doctors. Stephen didn’t trust private doctors, even when they were hired specifically for Avengers issues. _Especially_ when they were hired specifically for Avengers issues. Doctors, in his experience, were bad news. And he should know.

“Where are my robes?” Stephen slurred by way of reply. It hurt to talk.

It hurt to talk, to swallow, to exhale. It hurt to turn his head, raise his arm. He could feel the even intervals of stitches down his neck and collar. Those hurt too. Everything hurt, and Stephen couldn’t really see beyond than two feet in front of him because he got dizzy focusing further, and his Cloak was elsewhere and his possessions were missing and he was so fucking _over_ being conscious.

“We couldn’t salvage your robes,” said the doctor. Patiently. Stephen assumed she’d voiced the answer before, but he didn’t recall asking.

There were dangerous items in those robes. Valuable ones. Ones that held _rather personal_ information that should not be observed by any eyes but his own. 

“Need them,” Stephen said. Or tried to say. His tongue was doing its best impression of a dead fish. 

He tasted blood. He heard a groan—his own?—and frantic voices.

He went under.

⭒✸⭒

Tony knew how it felt to sit beside a hospital bed, waiting. He knew intimately the drab helplessness and melancholy greyness that accompanied the passive action. So he’d done all he could to turn the compound infirmary into something bright and homey and colorful. He’d found quilted blankets and clumsily patterned, dreadfully comfortable pillows. There were hardwood walls and natural light and furniture as communal as possible. The room was more of a bedroom than a place of recovery. 

But nothing he did could change the waiting. 

Tony didn’t know why he was waiting. He shouldn’t be waiting, he should be _asleep_ like every other sane individual would be at this hour. The kids were in bed, and they’d need him in the morning.

Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling he was needed here, now.

Stephen was fine. The wound in his neck had been shallow, sparing the tendons and vessels, and the deeper section had stitched up without incident. Tony knew from eavesdropping and unabashed coercion that the magic had made machine readings look terrifyingly unstable for too many moments—but the Avengers medical had level heads and a tolerance for the bizarre. They’d embroidered the wizard up like a damn doily. Just another scar. 

Tony’s elbow was leaving a dent in the arm of the chair. His knuckles were leaving marks against his cheek where he supported the weight of his head. He had one earbud in, idly chirping at him, and he watched the lump of blankets breathe as though that would somehow justify his being here.

Stephen hadn’t woken, but he’d borrowed down into the bed like some sort of gopher all the same. Tony couldn’t even see the top of his head. And fuck everything, but he caught himself thinking he should add that to his list of likable things before remembering Rhodey had ended the ongoing assignment. 

He attempted pretending he only did it out of habit. He gave up after about five minutes.

There was a notepad in his pocket with 28 noticings and observations and opinions. 28 out of what he thought might be countless variables equating that Tony liked the goddamn wizard. Liked and loathed and wanted and scorned and blamed and forgave—hatred had no business being as nuanced as this. 

Beside Tony, Stephen’s Rubik’s Cube popped. Tony didn’t jump. He was used to the thing’s confusing behavior after however long he’d been sitting here. Instead of having three-square sides, it now had four, and as Tony watched, the red-blue-white sides he could see from his chair turned pink, purple, and black respectively. It hissed, whirled, then settled.

Tony raised an eyebrow.

“You done?”

The Cube popped again. 

Tony sighed, leaning forward to poke at the thing where it sat on a tray beside the bed. It was still coated in flaking blood and dust. A stained notepad rested against it, pages warped and spine bent, and Tony moved to straighten it. The wire spiral bit into his fingertips.

Tony’s gaze fell on the first line of wobbly handwriting. _‘Seven things I like about Tony Stark’_ had been crossed out; beneath it was a slightly more confident _‘positive things about Tony Stark.’_

Tony snorted. “Clever,” he told the pile of blankets. “One might even say _cheating.”_

Tony went to put the pad back, not particularly in the mood to stroke his own ego, then paused. 

There were more than seven entries on Stephen’s first list. 

Tony blinked, flashing between being flattered, amused, and curious before landing solidly on confused. He lifted the first page—the list continued all down the second. And the third. There was no break, no second list, just one long stream of positives as Tony flipped pages. 

And pages.

And _pages._

… Well, what was a little ego-stroking at two in the morning, really? 

⭒✸⭒

Stephen noticed, with something that might have been considered panic upon opening bleary eyes, that Tony Stark was sitting beside his hospital bed. That didn’t happen in good futures. And it certainly didn’t happen in the winning One. 

Stephen took a moment to remember that they had indeed won. The panic, however, didn't fade. Because admittedly, acknowledging the problem didn’t make said problem immediately disappear out of that damned chair, or stop _looking_ at him like he was some sort of universal impossibility. 

It was dark outside the curtained window, and as far as Stephen knew, the hour was early. Another reason Stark shouldn’t be here. Not that there was any reason he _should_ be here. Stephen narrowed his eyes at Stark, at his tired and slightly unkempt appearance. Then he noticed the bloodstained notepad on the man’s knee. 

“You did not,” Stephen grunted, voice rough and rasping.

Tony at least had the decency to look guilty. “I couldn’t help myself.”

“That’s a blatant and sickening disregard for my privacy,” Stephen said, because it sounded safer than _‘fucking shit on a stick where’s the fucking Time Stone and my common sense?’_ He wondered if he was blushing, or if he's lost enough blood to be spared at least that humiliation. 

Tony was still looking at him. Damage control, at this point, was useless. 

Stephen curled tighter around himself in the blankets, trailing a shaking finger over the stitches in his clavicle. He refused to look anywhere at all.

“I can do without the judgement,” he drawled. “Sorry to ruin all these last week’s hard work. I—it doesn’t change anything, I’ll still—sorry—”

"I hate you so much,” Tony said, and kissed him. 

⭒✸⭒

Tony wouldn’t call it a kiss. More like putting a wizard out of his misery. Even Tony wasn’t heartless enough to let someone stutter on like that any longer. 

Not that heartless at all.

Stephen startled like he hadn’t been expecting it and kissed Tony back like he was. He tasted like blood and sanitized hospital equipment and all the dust in that New York street, because he’d just woken up from heavy injury, for God’s sake. Tony didn’t care. It felt like snapping a pencil in half, like releasing a rubber band he’d let stretch to insane proportions. And oh yes, it felt like Stephen Strange. Right here, like this, in the reality that grew after the end of the world. 

_I’ve finally got you. I’ve finally got how you fit into my universe, after all._

⭒✸⭒

Stephen’s shaking hands were too tangled in fabric, muscles to stiff, mind too static-shocked blank to pull Tony closer. It didn’t seem to matter. Nothing seemed to matter. Lions had less confidence than Tony Stark. Prisms had less colors. Clear tea and sweet challenge were less irresistible—and snowballs in hell were less impossible. 

This one-in-fourteen-million future was even luckier than Stephen had thought.

And there was nothing here to apologize for. 

⭒✸⭒

_I hate you so much._

_Yeah, we’re definitely gonna have to come up with a better word for it._

⭒✸⭒

Stephen could feel the spiral binding digging into his hip where Tony still held the notepad. Rhodes had probably designed it that way on purpose. He wouldn’t put that past the man, or the Stark gremlins. 

This had been their plan all along, hadn’t it?

Stephen closed his eyes and finally got his hands free of the bedclothes, reaching up to run his shaking fingers through the hair of the engineer above him. It was short and soft and greasy from too long without washing. Skin pulled stingingly against its stitches, and Stephen wondered if it was always going to be like that, always a tear of control and a wound of constraints.

Stephen looked back to the worlds he’d seen and the worlds he’d held between his hands. He saw so much, so far, and it all looped back, infinity on its side, to the feel of Tony Stark and all the ways he wasn’t supposed to love him. 

_Seven things I like about you._

Stephen owed the gremlins a thank you. 

⭒✸⭒

_Let’s do this one more time, just for fun. Seven things I like about Stephen Strange:_

> _1\. He’s easily flustered._

> _2\. He doesn’t hesitate._

> _3\. He has a photographic memory. That comes in handy, y’know._

> _4\. How much he tries to pretend he doesn’t like being touched. (I see right through you, lovely.)_

> _5\. He pays attention enough to know what annoys me. And then he does it anyway. I could do without that last part, but I’m pretty sure getting rid of that would get rid of ninety percent of Stephen Strange._

> _6\. He’s just as broken as the rest of us._

> _7\. How easy he makes this, now. I like that I love him._

> _Shut up, okay._

⭒✸⭒

 _ ~~Positive things about Tony Stark~~ _ _Things I like about Tony Stark:_

  * _He’s observant._
  * _His presence is a some sort of impossible cure-all._
  * _Do I need to spell this out for you, really?_
  * _I’m in love with him._
  * _He admits when he’s wrong._
  * _He takes at least nine years to admit that he’s wrong. It’s hilarious to watch._
  * _He’s stubborn and self-deprecating and he refuses to be genuine or be convinced his feelings matter. I hate that. But I think it goes on the reasons-I-love-him list anyway, because isn’t that the whole point?_



⭒✸⭒

Tony Stark was a genius. Certified, if anyone happened to forget, though he made sure they didn’t.

When Tony knew something, he _knew_ it; knew it inside-out and upside-down, knew every facet, every edge, every problem it might have. He knew the refraction indexes of glass and water and grease, and he knew the chemical makeup of the average human integumentary cell. He knew how Morgan liked her ice cream, how Harley was liable to sneak bites from anyone in range, and how Peter preferred snickerdoodle cookies to everything else under the sun. He knew the date, the feel of sunglasses, and the last sentence of the novel he was reading. 

He knew, sitting on the edge of the Compound roof with his head on Stephen Strange’s shoulder, that this was a universe he could get behind. Where nothing and everything had changed, there was nowhere he’d rather be. 

Tony closed his eyes and smiled. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> And they lived happily ever after, fuck you canon.


End file.
